Food for Thought: Buying Out Kotalik

When Glen Sather signed Ales Kotalik over the summer to a three year deal at $3 million per season, I cringed. I was really hoping for one more year of Nik Zherdev, I think his presence this year would have really helped the Rangers. Alas, we were stuck with Kotalik, and now we have $3 million sitting in the Prucha Box.

Just for fun, I ran the numbers for buying out Kotalik at the end of the season, and the numbers themselves aren’t too terrible. Due to the structure of Kotalik’s contract ($3 million a year), the buyout numbers don’t vary from year to year the way they would with a buyout of Michal Rozsival. If Glen Sather decides to buy out Kotalik at the end of this season, the resulting cap hit will be just $1 million for the next four seasons. The Rangers would save $2 million in cap room for the next two seasons, and then have an extra $1 million cap hit for the following two seasons.

If Kotalik can’t find a way to claw his way into the lineup on a consistent basis, what’s the point of having his $3 million on the books? I’d rather it just be $1 million. But hey, I’m biased, I never liked Kotalik.

I originally liked the Kotalik signing because I thought he would help the PP, but clearly that was just misguided hope.

I agree, buy him out. His remaining cap hit is a sunk cost. No reason tying up the remaining $2 million in bench fodder when it can go somewhere else that would be more productive, because at this point anyone is.

Furthermore, agreed regarding Zherdev and I’m glad you said it, Dave. I never really wanted him to go, but at the time of his departure, he was asking too much for where the team was in the offseason.

Hey -agree about Kotalik…thought it was bad in the summer and that’s how it worked out.Said it before…i think the whole Brooks thing on Z begging to come back was complete bs…no once else had reported it and if you go back to his articles and the one where z had this big conspiracy theory planned all along to get out of Ny…really???? What’s most concerning is that between kotalik and brashear we have what $4.8 million a year has healthy scratches